Meizu’s M8 MiniOne shipping January 17th

Alright, so this isn’t straight from the horse’s mouth, but this potential ship date for the Meizu M8 definitely vibes with what we’ve heard up until now. This one has a new price too, at $788.50, which is a fair amount less than the $989 number floating around. Anyway, sounds like we’ll have a few months yet until the 16GB iPhone influenced phone hits. Why so long, Meizu?

Samsung’s SGH-F700 gets (really) official on Vodafone

Those paying attention should know full well by now that Samsung’s SGH-F700 (you know, the Croix) is set to make everyone not a Vodafone customer uber-envious here soon, but just in case you missed it, Sammy is making sure you’re up to speed. The handset will boast a three-megapixel camera, a 3.2-inch 432 x 240 resolution touchscreen, QWERTY keypad, Bluetooth 2.0, USB, a microSD expansion slot, HSDPA, and an integrated media player that handles H.263 / H.264, MP3, and AAC formats. We know what you’re really after, so check out a bit more eye candy after the jump.

iPhone firmware v1.1.1 with “international” support coming soon?

 

With the launch of the iPod touch and the iTunes WiFi Music Store this week, it’s pretty obvious that the iPhone is due for an update soon — Apple can’t leave all those iPhone users wondering what song is playing in Starbucks, after all — but what’s not certain is how much of an update we’re going to see. The eagle-eyed posters at HowardForums might have spotted a clue, though — the iPhone early-adopter $100 credit signup page clearly shows an iPhone running firmware v1.1.1, with a couple interesting additions: a setting for “Home Button,” and another marked “International.” The Home Button setting will likely bring the iPod touch’s nifty double-tap music controller to the iPhone, but we have no idea what the International menu is for — maybe for reducing some of those crazy roaming bills? Either way, we should know soon.

TicTalk Mobile Phone For Kids

The must-have kid’s toys of the past like Cabbage Patch Kids in the 80’s and Tickle Me Elmo in the 90’s are being replaced by high-tech must-have items such as cellphones these days. Of course no parent should give an irresponsible 10-year-old a completely unrestricted phone so kid-friendly cellphones are becoming more popular. Like the Firefly or Migo the TicTalk is a fully working GSM/GPRS capable cellphone that is only restricted when it comes to how the child can use it.

The phone uses a pay-as-you-go rate plan that runs about $25 for 100 minutes but the parent can also limit how many of those minutes the child can use on a daily basis. These restrictions including a pre-approved phone book can all be setup by logging into the TicTalk website since the phone itself only has a minimal set of buttons. (No keyboard.) Syncing is all done wirelessly but you can connect the TicTalk to a PC via USB in order to upload photos. But given it only has a black and white screen that functionality seems rather pointless.

As an added incentive to entice parents the TicTalk also includes a set of educational Leap Frog games for teaching math, spelling, science and social studies. And to encourage the kids to actually touch those games they can earn additional reward minutes by playing them.

The TicTalk runs about $99 in addition to the pay-as-you-go rates but the activation is free.

Apple confirms: iPod touch cannot add calendar appointments

Late last night some eagle-eyed Engadget readers spotted some disparities in Apple’s international sites, with some claiming the iPod touch would be able add calendar appointments with its calendar app, and others omitting that language. We got in touch with our people down in Cupertino who just confirmed the (somewhat) bad news is real: “Like current iPods, the touch can only view calendar entries created on your computer”. In other words, no, you can’t make new calendar entries on the fly. Why Apple would want to remove this simple feature that’s already built into the mobile OS X calendar experience is really beyond us, but we guess they’re doing their damnedest to draw the line in the sand between iPod and iPhone. Still, makes you wonder what other minor, useful features Apple pulled from the touch.

iTunes now serving-up Ringtones

If paying for ringtone snippets of the songs you already own is your idea of a good time, then get on over to iTunes trust funders, Apple’s now serving up ringtones at $1.98 a pop. But they’re only $0.99 you say? Nope, remember, you have to buy the rights to the song too. Fun. Keep it safe, kids.